Patriots’ Cardona gets the ‘Yes Sir’ from Navy to play in Super Bowl

The upcoming Super Bowl is just another weekend of work for the New England Patriots

But one Patriot had a work conflict to get out of first.

According to www.taskandpurpose.com, Patriots’ long snapper Joe Cardona, a Navy Reservist, had to get permission from his Commanding Officer so he could play in this weekend’s Super Bowl.

Cardona, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 2015, is in a reserve unit at the Navy Operational Support Center in Newport. According to the website, Cardona’s “commitment includes one weekend of inactive-duty training per month” and his drill weekend happen to fall at the start of the month.

According to the site, the Navy Reserve Force was able to reschedule his drill weekend – the site said it wasn’t know exactly when that would happen – and will be on the field Sunday.

This is the second straight season Cardona has run into this conflict. He was granted permission to miss a drill weekend last year so he could play in the Patriots’ dramatic 34-28 win over Atlanta last February in Houston.

Cardona has been doing double duty for the Patriots and the Navy since he was drafted in 2015. According to a feature in the Newport Daily News from September of 2015, Cardona was playing and practicing for the Patriots and working as a mentor at the Naval Academy Prepatory School in Newport as part of his five-year, post-grad commitment to the Navy.

“I’m going to play as long as I’m able to,” said Cardona to the Daily News, “but I also understand that I have another calling, and that’s really why I went to the Naval Academy.”